French trading technology vendor GL Trade is to consolidate the diverse range of service offerings it has acquired over the past four years into a single GL Stream Workstation product which is being lined up for release later this year.
The vendor says the GL Stream Workstation is the culmination of the migration of all the diverse technologies its has acquired since 2001. The company has bought a number of businesses over the past four years, including Hong Kong-based order processing software vendor Finsoft, market visualisation firm 4D Trading and Misys Securities Trading Systems' businesses in the UK, Japan and Hong Kong.
Last year GL Trade also bought French trading systems firm Ubitrade, US order routing firm Davidge and Iris Group, a Dutch provider of screen-based trading and decision support software.
The news of the product release comes as GL Trade reports a 17.2% increase in 2004 turnover to EUR150.1m. The vendor says 79% of its turnover was achieved outside France.
The group says operating income rose to EUR27.1 m, while net income before goodwill reached EUR20.1 m, an increase of 24.8% on last year.
But net cash dropped from EUR48m in 2003 to just EUR11m at the end of 2004. GL Trade says the fall is due to global group external growth operation (EUR40m) and the purchase of its own shares to facilitate the divestment of Reuters and the increase of the free float (EUR20.3m).
Looking ahead, GL Trade says it will be targeting new development opportunities in Central Europe, and especially in Russia where a number of contracts have been signed.